Building information modeling (BIM) can refer to the generation and/or management of data associated with a building (e.g., data associated with the components, equipment, and/or properties of the building). For example, BIM data can include architectural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, sanitary, fire, and/or geometrical information associated with a building.
The leading international standard for describing the data contained within a building information model is called the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC), which is an open standard designed and maintained by the Building Smart Alliance. This is a very comprehensive standard that provides for the description of data related to many sub-domains related to the design, build, construction, and/or operation of a building environment. Furthermore, within each sub-domain, the data can be very detailed and complex in representation.
The amount of BIM data associated with a building, and codified or expressed in the IFC standard, tends to be proportional to the size of the building, and can grow exponentially based on the number of specific sub-domains that are identified and documented in the BIM, including, for example, plumbing, electrical, or mechanical systems. Therefore, even a small building with very complete information for many different systems within the building may have a very large amount of BIM data associated therewith. Accordingly, a BIM model of any building may include a large amount of BIM data, which can increase the amount of time and/or computing resources needed to display the BIM model, or identify the relevant objects and/or relationships in the building, and thus have a negative impact on the application, particularly when the user only desires a particular portion of the BIM data.
The commercially available tools and standards for developing BIM data can be inconsistent. In addition, the application of the tools and a number of modeling techniques can also be inconsistent. Thus, additional methods to determine useful information from the geometry of the number of modeling techniques can be beneficial.